I need to start giving my little guy grain, he is s really easy keeper though, I just need more energy. Was thinking trimax? My retired girl was always hot just on HFHF and beer pulp
It could be that your fat horse “needs energy” because he needs fitness. An out-of-shape (fat) horse is often lazy and tires easily because he’s, well, fat.
Evaluate your riding schedule, fitness program, and I bet more exercise will perk him up a little. 
Lots of long hacks, trotting, some hill work will help build muscle and condition. When he starts losing weight, then look at adjusting your feed. If he has access to good spring grass he may not need much grain since he’s an easy keeper.
Totally agree. Additional calories on an already sufficiently kept horse (5 BCS or above) will aggravate rather than help the issue. A fat horse would be suspected to have high leptin (bad hormone) and lower levels of metabolizing boosting adiponectin. This increases fat storage, inflammation and appetite (among many other things). It is also increasing the opportunity for insulin resistance. The high leptin levels are reversible with weightless and if this horse is overweight you should see a normal energy level return. Feeding more calories will potentiate the issue. Lack of fitness is much more likely the root cause and I’m sure you know how to fix that
Sorry for the weight loss soap box. I have a fat one at home too and I know it’s not always as simple as just feeding them less. Slow feeders and exercise are the fat horse owner’s friend. Some gastrogard can help get them through the “less than ideal” amount of hay period with out extra complications.
Aside from that, if your horse isn’t terribly over weight, substituting some alfalfa can be really helpful in balancing out the diet with more protein. Taking a good look at the whole diet can help identify if anything is missing. Fat horses can be even more prone to deficiencies because they often eat a hay only diet. If you’re not sure, try adding a month of smartpak thrive or smartpak essentials. I know getting hay samples tested isn’t always as practical as we’d like it to be, especially for people that board. You can still research your area and find out if the soil is known to be low in certain minerals.
Good luck and I hope you get a good resolution with your horse!
give him some corn, that will get him bouncing off the rafters. 
Funny story – when I was just a kid, I bought my first horse to move up on after the ponies, a lovely 4 yo sport bred TB by Castle Magic that had about 90 days on him but was very sensible. He was a little underweight. His breeder told me I could put some weight on him by feeding him some corn. Sure, I took him home, stuffed him full of corn and within a few months my sweet horse was a fire breathing dragon runaway.
My parents became rather concerned after some rather dramatic episodes, and eventually took the horse back to the breeder to be sold on consignment after about a year. I was in tears because I loved the horse, but my parents insisted it was unsafe to see it buck and run away with me daily.
The breeder took one look at my very fat, extremely happy horse and shook his head. The horse looked gorgeous, but… He called us two days later and said I could come get the horse, it was fine, just to STOP FEEDING IT CORN. He had turned the horse out and it ran for four hours straight. We had the horse turned out at home, but with a bunch of boring quarter horses that apparently weren’t enough to run out his energy.
He was right. Switched to rice bran, and that horse took me to the junior jumpers, regular working hunters, and is now buried under my spruce trees after a long successful career and then retirement. Not a thing wrong with him that wasn’t caused by feeding him rocket fuel. Oh, rookie horse owner mistakes…
ETA: here was that horse, many years later in his calm post-corn state: https://fordtraktor.shutterfly.com/pictures/70
So, I imagine, if you want to perk one up you can do it that way, but use extreme caution!
Actually, real advice, I wouldn’t give a fat horse high sugar feeds without making sure it wasn’t insulin resistant first. The #1 thing I would do is sharpen it to my leg by having a strict ask then require policy and make sure I am not nagging with my aids (hate riding a slug), then not really care whether the horse was in the mood or not. He can come up with more energy if he respects your leg. You feed and house him for 24 hours a day in comfort and peace, he can work 1 of them without complaint. Ride it out instead of in the ring, a lot of times that can perk them up more because it isn’t boring. And just keep it fit. I don’t know that I would change the feed at all, I really prefer everything on a low sugar high fat diet like TC Senior.
[QUOTE=fordtraktor;8125115]
give him some corn, that will get him bouncing off the rafters.
Funny story – when I was just a kid, I bought my first horse to move up on after the ponies, a lovely 4 yo sport bred TB by Castle Magic that had about 90 days on him but was very sensible. He was a little underweight. His breeder told me I could put some weight on him by feeding him some corn. Sure, I took him home, stuffed him full of corn and within a few months my sweet horse was a fire breathing dragon runaway.
My parents became rather concerned after some rather dramatic episodes, and eventually took the horse back to the breeder to be sold on consignment after about a year. I was in tears because I loved the horse, but my parents insisted it was unsafe to see it buck and run away with me daily.
The breeder took one look at my very fat, extremely happy horse and shook his head. He called us two days later and said I could come get the horse, it was fine, just to STOP FEEDING IT CORN. He had turned the horse out and it ran for four hours straight. We had the horse turned out at home, but with a bunch of boring quarter horses that apparently weren’t enough to run out his energy.
He was right. Switched to rice bran, and that horse took me to the junior jumpers, regular working hunters, and is now buried under my spruce trees. Not a thing wrong with him that wasn’t caused by feeding him rocket fuel.
So, I imagine, if you want to perk one up you can do it that way, but use extreme caution![/QUOTE]
Too Funny! Great story
Should rephrase that, totally my fault, he has been back to work for 2 months and is doing gallops and trails/hills and has a pretty good work schedule. He is an easy keeper so I don’t want him to be fat. He works about 4-5 days a week and he works those days, I’m not walking around twiddling our thumbs lol he started out kind of hot and Bucky when I first started him back but with all the work he’s been doing his energy level is lower now.
He is getting relatively fit I’m just finding his energy level is not what it could be. I ended up just getting trimax anyways.
I need to start giving my little guy grain, he is s really easy keeper though, I just need more energy. Was thinking trimax? My retired girl was always hot just on HFHF and beer pulp…
I think it’s the beer that’s making him lazy!!
I’m not sure I would feed something like Trimax to an easy keeper. I would have them on a balancer pellet matched to his forage…and then might consider something like RedCell or a vite boost like Ultra Fire.
But would be avoiding adding a high caloric feed.
I would also consider having blood pulled and tested.
I have one of these - she is a very easy keeper but every year after coming back into work after the winter she would sort of hit a wall where she just couldn’t seem to muster the energy to work. During her winter vacation/light riding she’d get grass hay and a handful of gran. Which just wasn’t enough when she was an active event horse. This usually happened 6-8 weeks after going back to full work.
I would choose a lower protein, higher fat grain and increase it only to the point where she began to perk up. I don’t know what brands you have available but I feed Nutrena and she would get their Triumph 10 percent. At her peak work (Training level eventing) she would get 2 qts am & pm - which is a lot more than her 2 handfuls in the winter. She was not fat on this amount of grain.
Because he’s an easy keeper you don’t really need to rocket fuels, but you also want him to have the nutrition to build muscle and stamina.
Look at the Brooks feeds…Trimax is liken to Beneful (the Canadian version of it)…not great.
